City Park Links

[Titus]

I've played both of Sage's new courses - Allen Meadow Pines Estate GC and City Park Links -
several times now, and they are just great, I like courses like that, everything looks so easy with him.

I love Sage's forest courses, you always have to be careful how you tee off.

There are few trees at City Park Links, but there is still a lot to see here, great implementation, for me one of the most beautiful city courses.

Most of it has already been said, I just hope that Sage doesn't drift too much into the FPS camp and that he will continue to do so for a long time preserved.

thank you for all of your efforts

[sagevanni]

Thanks Titus.....!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sage.....

[gene_golf]

From time to time it is super pleasant to play a course that has not been over-engineered. The clarity of the views really stands out and I would feel comfortable playing it even without top views. One of the few courses (at least among those I tried) where what you see resembles what one's eyes see on a real golf course. Never had a "where the f... is the fairway down there.." moment.

As for hidden fairways especially on downhill holes where the fairway or green for a par 3 is obscured by the raised back tee extending far out that has been a problem on some courses have played making the use of overhead view absolutely necessary to have when aiming. If forward tees are on the same level as the back tee this makes situation worse and could be resolved by staggering the tees down hill. I had read somewhere that the famous #7 hole at Pebble Beach had a another course designer, Lacy Gearheart step in and suggest a solution here in Links as it is such a hole that I am referencing making it look as does in reality and without a blind shot to its green. Pebble Beach 1930 edition very clearly shows that green on hole #7 is not visible as there is just the tee area and ocean when we know that green is really there surrounded by greenside sand traps and at a couple of places the ocean creeping up very near to the green itself there.

Also there are tee shots where drive is flat, but hole may dogleg with trees both right and left as well as sometimes planting trees between tee and fairway that obscure direction to where wish to have shot land making for the need of an overhead view. There are cases where taller trees are directly in line where prevents pulling out driver since it will not clear the tree whereas a 3 wood or flopped 3 wood or a 5 wood has to be used. That is if the shot does not allow to get longer distance by a hook or draw with driver going around the tree blocking intended landing area being gotten to. Might be trees or other hazards could be driven over cutting the dogleg as it were and making the hole play shorter, but have to make sure landing area will be safe enough to try and make it to that location as a consideration. Makes for shorter shot, so as can possibly reach par 5 in 2 shots or reach a par 4 in one shot or just have shorter shot into a par 4's green. There is an advantage of hitting a short iron for approach shot instead of a long iron over water hazard to a front pin location when thinking of cutting corners of doglegs for drives. Sage can be sometimes tricky with his course designs, but as Mr. T. writes he is thankful to find a breather course that has not been tricked up making for so much thinking as he attributes this course as being.

Some hole designs with severe doglegs have tall trees blocking the next shot and it is preferable to be on opposite side of fairway or even in the rough. It kind of burns me up to have reachable distance to possibly get on a par 5 in 2 shots, but by hole design have to play out to side with say a 9 iron and having another 9 iron to reach green in regular 3 shots. Some older courses played have found these unfair designs that would not find on real courses.

[gene_golf]

To add to what have written so far about need to play using overhead view. There is also the case where shot goes to an uphill green where might be able to see flag, but not where it is located on green or how far away from a greenside sand trap it might be as those are also usually obscured. Pros would want such information in addition to yardage shot being before hitting a shot, otherwise would be playing blind. Even if having green set at same level as where the location shot hitting from is at there are sometimes mounds in between that obscuring seeing green or hazards around green. In the case of hitting uphill it is unusual to have a water hazard near green as just by nature water hazards usually are found in low levels of land topography. I have seen where hole #16 at Castle Pines has had a water hazard added to left side of green. In this case it looks natural as it cascades downhill back to tee area. Having a hole preview in addition to using overhead view would be good to have as might provide insight on how to play a hole that player might not readily pick up on by themselves.